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We developed this series of stay-at-home physics experiments to provide ideas for instructors to design hands-on physics activities for online courses.

We are focusing only on introductory physics courses because more advanced courses often require more sophisticated equipment that is not readily available at home.

For all the experiments developed in this project, we aim to cover important topics of physics with relatively cheap and easily accessible materials. We also try to reuse the materials for more than one experiment in a course, so that it is feasible for instructors to assemble low-cost lab kits and ship them to the students.

In an effort to make the experiments quantitative, many experiment activities are built around the freely accessible open-source app Phyphox. The Phyphox app can extract data from the sensors built in most smartphones, which allows the experiments to involve extensive data analysis that is comparable to traditional in-person experiments.

All the experiments in this project have been implemented in online courses at least once. Students’ feedback and teaching assistants’ feedback were used to improve the instruction manuals. 

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